1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to an apparatus and method for controlling a transparent tunnel mode operation in a communication system supporting a wireless docking protocol, and more particularly, to an apparatus and method for controlling a transparent tunnel mode operation to share wireless docking related information for peripherals in a communication system supporting a wireless docking protocol.
2. Description of the Related Art
In a docking operation, such as those performed in office environments, for example, a dockee (e.g., a laptop) is docked to a docking center in order to enhance a user experience by providing connectivity between the dockee and peripherals (e.g., a mouse, a keyboard, and a display).
The docking center may also provide additional ports, such as a Universal Serial Bus (USB) port. Recently, high-speed home networking schemes, such as Wimedia scheme and Wireless-Fidelity (Wi-Fi) networking schemes, have been proposed, in which the docking operation may be implemented wirelessly through such home networking schemes. In the Wimedia and Wi-Fi networking schemes, the dockee and the docking center communicate based on the wireless networking scheme.
A Wi-Fi docking standard defines mechanisms that support a docking operation for various wired and wireless peripherals. The mechanisms defined in the Wi-Fi docking standard may be performed through a Wi-Fi direct Peer to Peer (P2P) protocol and/or in an infrastructure mode operation.
A Wi-Fi docking architecture proposed in the Wi-Fi docking standard is described below.
The Wi-Fi docking architecture defines three roles (i.e., a Wireless Dockee (WD), a Wireless Docking Center (WDC), and a peripheral). The WD consumes a service The WDC operates as a dock with respect to at least one peripheral and enables docking. The peripheral provides a specific service to the WD.
Peripherals may be grouped into a Wireless Docking Environment (WDN). A plurality of WDNs may be included in one Wi-Fi direct P2P group. The Wi-Fi direct P2P group includes a Group Owner (GO), which is similar to an Access Point (AP), and also includes group client devices, which are similar to STAtion (STA) devices in the infrastructure mode.
The GO transmits a beacon signal on a specific operating channel, and may be discovered by group client devices. Upon discovering the GO, the group client devices may join a group through a group join procedure. As a part of the group join process, the GO initiates a provisioning process, which provides security keys to the group client devices. The security keys are used for a secure communication within the group.
The Wi-Fi direct P2P protocol mandates use of a Wi-Fi Protected Access Version 2 (WPA2) personal mode of operation for securing communication among the group client devices included in the Wi-Fi direct P2P group. The WPA2 scheme defines two key types: a Pairwise Transient Key (PTK) used for unicast transmissions that is specific to a GO/AP and a P2P client/client STA pair, and a Group Transient Key (GTK) used for multicast and broadcast communications in the Wi-Fi direct P2P group.
A Wi-Fi display standard defines mechanisms for a mirroring operation between a source device and a sink device. The source device captures, encodes, packetizes, and streams content being played to the sink device. The sink device de-packetizes, decodes and displays the content on either the sink device or a display connected to the sink device.
Before performing the aforementioned operations, the source device and the sink device discover each other, get connected to each other using a Wi-Fi direct P2P scheme, and inform each other about their respective capabilities through a capability negotiation operation.
The wireless docking protocol, which supports the WDC, supports a two-hop protocol between the WD (a device that requires a service/functionality) and the peripheral (a device that provides the service/functionality) as an intermediate hop in a topology. The wireless docking protocol inherently runs through a Wi-Fi direct P2P connection. The Wi-Fi direct P2P connection supports a WPA2 personal mode security operation.
The WPA2 personal mode security operation supports a PTK per peripheral used for unicast transmissions and a GTK used for multicast and broadcast transmissions in the Wi-Fi direct P2P group. However, a wireless docking scheme introduces a WDN, which is a group that includes peripherals, a WDC, and a WD. There may be a plurality of WDNs in the Wi-Fi direct P2P group.
A wireless docking environment supports Wi-Fi display use. A Miracast protocol is a protocol defined by a Wi-Fi alliance for this purpose, i.e., the Wi-Fi display use. The Miracast protocol is a single hop protocol with a termination entity (a Miracast sink device) at an end of a link. Accordingly, there is a need for a scheme to run a single hop protocol through a 2 hop topology. A detailed description of such a scheme is provided herein below.
It is possible to implement a proxy based solution on a WDC, thereby processing the two hop topology as two single hop topologies, through two Miracast sessions. Here, one of the two Miracast sessions is a Miracast session between a Miracast source device on a WD and a proxy Miracast sink device on the WDC, and other of the two Miracast sessions is a Miracast session between a proxy Miracast source device on the WDC and an actual Miracast sink device on a peripheral.
Two issues that occur when the proxy based solution is used on the WDC are described below.
The first issue is that there is a decryption process and an encryption process on the WDC.
The second issue is that an Internet Protocol (IP) address remapping process needs to be performed per each data packet, if a data packet is forwarded from the proxy Miracast sink device to the proxy Miracast source device.
Both the first issue and the second issue may have an impact on latency sensitive flows.
Therefore, there is a need for overcoming latency issues when a communication system supporting a wireless docking protocol operates in a proxy mode, while at the same time supporting deployment of single hop protocols.
The above information is merely presented as background information only to assist with an understanding of the present invention. No determination has been made, and no assertion is made, as to whether any of the above might be applicable as prior art with regard to the present invention.